Conventional ultrasonic B-mode images qualitatively describe tissue structures but are unsuitable for quantitative analyses of scatterer properties. The scattering phenomenon is occurred when the incident wavelength is greater than the size of the scatterer in a tissue. The generated backscattered signals would form speckle, which exhibits a granular pattern of white and dark spots in the ultrasonic B-mode image. To avoid the influence of the speckle effect on the image quality, many methods were proposed to reduce the speckle appearance in the B-mode image. Nevertheless, due to that the backscattered signals are actually dependent on the shape, size, density, and other properties of the scatterers in a tissue, the information related to the scatterers carried by both the backscattered echoes and other weak signals might be lost in the B-mode image.
Several years ago, the Nakagami distribution, initially proposed to describe the statistics of the radar echoes, was applied to the statistical analysis of the ultrasonic backscattered signals. The Nakagami distribution has been shown to be a general model for all scattering conditions encountered in medical ultrasound by Shankar in 2000. However, it may be the possible causes of misdiagnosis from low image resolution when it is applied to characterize homogeneous tissues.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide an acceleration and enhancement method for ultrasound scatterer structure visualization to enhance image and characterize homogeneous tissues to avoid misdiagnosis.